Featured Project
Fee Processing Next Generation
FPNG streamlines and standardizes the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) intellectual property fee collection and internal processing of approximately $3 billion in annual revenue.
Goals
- Streamline the agency’s fee-collection and refund processes
- Minimize manual handling of sensitive financial data as processing gets handled across the department
- Allow customers to self-manage their payment methods, empowering them and freeing up agency personnel
- Provide users with better insights into the status of their intellectual property and renewal status
- Reduce costly errors that occur as a result of inefficient fee submission and processing
Team and Responsibilities
Team Makeup
- 2 Product Owners
- 4 Product Managers
- Technical Lead
- 15 Developers
- User Experience Lead (me)
- 2 UX Designers
- 1 Visual Designer
My Responsibilities
- Planned and managed a global customer research program
- Collaborated with teams from patents and trademarks to align on strategy and goals
- Conducted contextual inquiries, usability testing, task analysis, card sorts
- Produced journey maps, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and contributed to the pattern library and marketing materials
User Research
Information Architecture
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Challenges
Reluctant to Change
Customers and the USPTO Office of Finance had processed payments by paper for a very long time. To prepare fee payment documentation, small customers created complex Excel sheets and larger customers created complex internal applications that they relied upon.
Because of this investment of time and money, customers were reluctant to change processes, despite the fact that the process was inefficient.
Digital transformation of patent and trademark fee processing
A sampling of the documentation required to be prepared for each fee payment. Because payments were submitted by paper through the mail from around the world, any error resulted in weeks of delay, which could put the status of the customer’s intellectual property in jeopardy.
Discovery
User Segmentation
The USPTO had a customer counsel representing a range of clients from law firms, pro se inventors, international corporations, and IP management firms across the globe. I coordinated with these customers to arrange interviews and observation of their fee processing staff.
Cadence
Of the many important factors considered for processing payments, time was the most consequential – quarterly payments, annual renewal decisions, weekly accounting, etc.
To help the team gain a shared understanding of these cadences, I created a series of cadence calendars that we used during interviews. Customers would mark key activities on four calendars – week, month, quarter, and fiscal year.
Current-State Journey
My team used the information obtained through our discovery efforts to create a current-state journey map.
This was instrumental in identifying the greatest opportunities for improvement and to use it as a communication tool within the delivery team and the agency more broadly.
Key Findings from Research
Paper Transactions
Customers calculate fees, print, and mail payments for upwards of 1,500 patents at a time.
Manual Processing
Manual processing at the USPTO results in a week-long turnaround; sometimes longer due to errors.
Costly Errors
Long resolution times for data discrepancies frequently place patent statuses into jeopardy.
Disparate Systems
The information needed to verify a patent status and fee amount exists across disjointed systems.
Perspective
Terminology (e.g. customer payments labeled as “sale”) do not reflect the customer’s perspective.
Change Aversion
Despite frustrations, users aren’t eager to see changes, and Patents Legal wants to avoid rules changes.
Design
Future-State Journey
With the knowledge gained through discovery, we were able to create a significantly streamlined user journey that addressed the business and users’ needs and supported their goals.
New Fee Processing Portal
My team created a beautiful sleek portal with account management, payment method management, views for upcoming and historic fee data, and single and bulk fee processing functionality.
The response to this interface was very positive from the actual fee processors, but we faced some reluctance from the companies they worked for (due to investments in internal applications). To ease concerns, they were still able to submit fees manually, while being given beta access to the new system. All beta participants switched over to the new system and became vocal advocates for it to other USPTO customers:
“The Financial Manager is designed to be a seamless online fee payment management system. Accordingly, under the new system, users will be able to virtually manage, store and review payment methods. Additionally, the system will generate and download transaction reports, assign user permits, and provide notifications for administrative matters.”
Even though payments were submitted by paper, the USPTO entered payment information into a legacy technology system. This meant that all historic fee data was available electronically.
With that data, we were able to create a streamlined online fee processing tool that significantly reduced the steps required to process fees and entirely eliminated the costly errors of manual processing.
Addressing Legal’s Objections
The second objection was the USPTO’s legal department, that did not believe the USPTO needed to provide a way for fee processing companies to file extensions for their clients along with payment for their other intellectual property.
I pulled direct quotes with audio from interviews, which was key to convincing the legal to concur with this substantial value-adding change.
USPTO Pattern Library & Design Toolkit
The interface design work that was created for FPNG was used to create the first iteration of the USPTO’s Design Library, which is used across the USPTO. In addition, I created an Axure widget library as a tool for designers across the agency.
Project Outcomes
Faster Processing
Bulk fee processing time reduced from one week to 5 minutes.
Adoption
100% of all bulk fees, 85% of all other fees are now paid online.
Reduced Burden
Near-total elimination of manual data entry.
Support Calls
USPTO Helpdesk experienced a significant reduction in fee-related calls
Error Prevention
With the systematic calculation of payments, the most common of errors are eliminated.